Turkey blocks 317 websites and Twitter accounts

A court in Ankara has blocked access to 317 websites and Twitter accounts. Also affected is the Hamburg left-wing parliamentary executive Cansu Özdemir.

ANF

HAMBURG

Monday, 18 Feb 2019, 09:05

By a decision of January 22, a court in Ankara has blocked access to 317 websites and Twitter accounts in Turkey. The ban affects several pages of the ANF (Fırat News Agency), the blog of Kurdish journalist Amed Dicle, the daily newspaper Yeni Özgür Politika published in Frankfurt, as well as various left and Kurdish publications.

A politician from Hamburg is also a target for the Turkish state: Cansu Özdemir, the co-chair of the DIE LINKE parliamentary group in the Hamburg Parliament.

The left-wing politician told ANF: "The ban shows once again how Erdoğan's long arm reaches Europe. The purpose is to prevent the criticism of the enormous human rights violations in Turkey and the opposition here in Europe from reaching the opposition in Turkey.

That my account was most likely blocked on grounds of 'terrorist propaganda' is another attempt to silence me. Even before, there were intimidation attempts by the agents of the Turkish intelligence service MIT, Mehmet Fatih S. and Mustafa K. I will continue to position myself as a German MP and Kurdish woman against Erdoğan's dictatorship and remain committed for my unlawfully imprisoned colleagues.”